Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Fern Britton 2018
Cover photographs © Jan Bickerton/Trevillion Images (cottage and path); © Shutterstock.com (additional images)
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007563005
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780007563012
Version: 2018-09-24
‘A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.’
Amy Tan
Contents
Copyright
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: Adela’s Only Love
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part Two: Sennen Comes Home
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Three: Ella’s Wedding Day
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
A Year Later
Acknowledgements
By the same author
About the Publisher
Trevay, 1993
The house was still.
Her heart was hammering – she could hear it in her ears, hear her breath whistle in her nostrils.
She tried to quieten both.
In the dark of her bedroom, she strained her ears to listen for any noise in the house.
The church bell rang the half hour. Half past eleven.
She’d gone up to bed early, her mother asking her if she was feeling all right.
‘Yeah. I’m fine.’ She’d shrugged off the caring hand her mother had placed in the small of her back.
‘If you’re sure?’ Her mother let her hand rest by her hip. ‘Is it your period?’
She had hunched her shoulders and scowled at that. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘Ella and Henry had a lovely day with you on the beach,’ said her mother, bending her head to look up into her daughter’s downcast eyes. ‘You’re doing so well.’
Sennen shrugged and turned to head for the stairs. Her father came out of the kitchen. ‘Those little ’uns of yours asleep, are they?’
‘She’s tired, Bill,’ replied her mother.
‘An early night.’ Her father smiled. ‘Good for you.’ She could feel her father’s loving gaze on her back, as she ascended the stairs. She wouldn’t turn around.
‘Goodnight, Sennen,’ chirped her mother. ‘Sleep tight.’
Her parents had finally gone to bed almost an hour ago and now she picked up the heavy rucksack she’d got for her fifteenth birthday. It had been used once, on a disastrous first weekend of camping for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. Even now the bone-numbing cold of one night in a tent and the penetrating rain of the twenty-mile hike the following day made her stomach clench. Back home she refused to complete any more challenges and